"How exaggerated."
Ren hovered in midair, quietly observing the changes brought about by that single strike.
It had not reached the point of destroying an entire island in one blow, but it was already enough to cause massive changes to the terrain.
If he changed the method and turned it into a wide-range destructive technique instead—
then it could probably be called a true natural disaster, a strike capable of ruining the ecology of an entire nation and turning it into a dead land.
But compared to the Yonko and Admirals, who truly possessed island-destroying might and whose every movement was a calamity in itself—
Ren knew he still had a very long road ahead of him.
Of course,
Sumeru: Divine Thunder was not Ren's true final trump card.
The principle behind this strike was basically the same as Thunder Spear's lightning absorption—it gathered, compressed, and then released the power.
The difference was that the scale of lightning now far surpassed anything from before.
Because Judgment's thunderclouds + Nami's Rumble-Rumble Fruit power + Nojiko's thunder-summoning ability = thunderclouds covering several hundred kilometers!
If not for Nami's restraint,
Dressrosa beneath those clouds would already have become like that lightning island in the New World, struck by bolts day and night, with pillars of lightning constantly linking heaven and earth.
And the current calm weather, that false stillness as if it were merely nighttime—
was only the result of all that lightning continuing to accumulate.
On top of that, the Sumeru Gourd had enormous capacity and possessed the property of refining and compressing what it stored.
That was why it could display such terrifying might.
But in the end,
Sumeru: Divine Thunder was still only a "large-scale skill" Ren had mastered during his special training, not his true "ultimate move."
The real one was even more horrifying than what was now on display.
A true island-destroying attack in the literal sense.
At this moment,
Ren was sweeping the area below with Observation Haki. The corner of the island that had been cut away had sunk into the seabed in the form of shattered rock.
It had spread into a rubble sea covering more than three hundred square kilometers, roughly larger than Macau.
He wasn't entirely sure whether Doflamingo was dead or alive.
Sumeru: Divine Thunder was undeniably powerful.
But in Ren's evaluation, Doflamingo also belonged among A-rank opponents.
Though he was most likely near the bottom of that tier, if one considered ultimate techniques, the man likewise possessed the power to flip over a trump card and destroy an island.
By the way, among those he also classified as A-rank, in Ren's judgment—
Vice Admiral Garp should be around A++, and if Conqueror's Haki infusion was included, perhaps even a weak S-.
BIG MOM's right-hand man, Charlotte Katakuri, should also be A++, and if Future Sight from Observation Haki was counted, he too might reach weak S-.
In addition, King of the Beasts Pirates was probably A++, or rather, two of the Three Calamities were at least A-rank monsters.
Only that mammoth idiot—the so-called "King of Shipping"—was probably B++, with at most his physique alone reaching A-.
Boom—!
The moment Ren's Observation Haki caught something, his passive Premonition Perception twitched as well.
A patch of white land suddenly rose from the rubble sea.
Doflamingo stood on top of it, apparently completely unharmed, staring coldly at the six-winged angel in the sky.
"You don't actually think you've won, do you?"
It was both an enraged question and a sneer dripping with contempt.
As though Ren's previous attack had amounted to nothing at all.
Doflamingo stomped lightly with one foot, and the white land beneath him continued spreading across the surrounding rubble—
and even across the seawater.
Or rather, assimilating it!
"There are three types of Devil Fruits. Logias are natural disasters, Zoans are overflowing vitality, and Paramecias are all sorts of bizarre abilities.
But eating a Devil Fruit doesn't mean you immediately obtain all of its power. That is what development is for."
Doflamingo let out his usual "fuffuffu" laugh.
"And when a Paramecia is developed to its limit, it begins to affect matter in the outside world.
That is called... Awakening!
That's right—this is the awakening of the String-String Fruit!
I don't know how much you prepared, but this power is not something that can be erased by tricks and schemes!"
Almost instantly, of the three-hundred-plus square kilometers of rubble sea in sight, more than half turned into white waves of string.
"Indeed. I prepared a lot."
Ren could not help applauding in admiration, as if sighing at Doflamingo's tenacity.
"Removing Violet was to seize the initiative.
My sudden assault was to guide all of you into thinking in terms of an external enemy attack, while also throwing your thoughts into chaos before you could piece everything together.
The pink dragon that appeared afterward was meant to divide the battlefield, crush Tesoro first, and conveniently leave you for last.
As for telling you who I was, that was to buy myself an opening to strike first.
But unfortunately, I didn't succeed."
He spoke with a trace of emotion.
"As expected, once strength reaches a certain level, the importance of schemes begins to decline.
In this world, the strong rule in the end. Ten thousand plots can't compare to a single move from a true powerhouse.
But—what made you think I no longer had strength left?"
The six-winged angel cast down a cold gaze.
He merely clenched one hand lightly, and the thunderclouds spanning hundreds of kilometers burst with blinding radiance.
Endless lightning gathered in his hand, forming a spear of thunder made of leaping light!
With a casual gesture, it reached the same colossal scale as it had back in Nanohana.
At this moment, he was the god of lightning itself!
"Doflamingo, in my plan, you were only one step used to verify an answer.
You were never the main target of this battle—just like how your battered self is now cowering beneath that white land!"
Observation Haki became the trigger for activation, and so his passive state, Premonition Perception, with a range of one hundred kilometers, locked onto a single point of "danger."
That's right—
the Doflamingo standing atop the white land was not the real body, but merely a puppet made by Black Knight!
"Divine Wrath: Thunder Spear!"
The gigantic thunder spear descended.
Violent thunder energy erupted, forming a pillar of lightning over a hundred meters thick, which then spread outward in a radiant burst and transformed into a tree-like web of lightning.
Every branch of that lightning net was several meters thick,
like countless mad pythons dancing wildly across the white land, dissolving every strand of string they touched!
The Black Knight puppet tried to counterattack, stirring up a tidal wave of string.
But the thunder spear was simply too overwhelming. In the blink of an eye, it was destroyed, and the immense thunder energy then bored into the white land like a bunker-busting bomb!
Boom—!
A magnificent mushroom cloud rose from the ground, the savage force nearly overturning the entire white earth!
The thunder energy coursing through the strings continued raging.
Before the real Doflamingo, curled up within, could even react, the Den Den Mushi in his hand had already been burned into charcoal.
"Shield White!"
Strings tangled around one another and formed several massive waves more than ten meters thick, wrapping around Doflamingo's real body and turning into a white sphere.
But the thunder energy around him showed no sign of fading.
Up in the sky,
the six-winged angel clenched his hand again, and the lightning in the storm layer obeyed his command, gathering into his palm.
Then it became a beam of light and plunged into the lingering "passage" between heaven and earth, replaying the previous scene all over again.
This time, however, the lightning pouring from Ren's hand did not vanish.
Instead, the output only kept increasing!
[Lightning Control: Thunder Prison!]
"Thunder," in the old sense, meant the lingering roar of lightning, broadly referring to an immense crashing sound.
And now, across that stretch of white land covering more than three hundred square kilometers,
rolling thunder roared without end.
The land woven from strings was lashed ceaselessly by lightning.
The moment each violent burst of thunder energy touched down, it transformed into blistering heat.
One red-hot scar after another lit up across the white land.
And when those glowing red patches spread to cover a third of its surface—
the entire white land began to come apart!
Doflamingo, hidden within, could no longer evade.
He was forced to reveal himself in a pitifully battered state.
The pink feather coat on his body was already gone without a trace.
His flesh was blackened all over, and beneath the charred shell one could vaguely see raw pink flesh and bone.
Clearly, he had been heavily wounded by that one strike of Sumeru: Divine Thunder, and had no choice but to hide beneath the white land, using the String-String Fruit's power to repair himself.
"A futile method. The power of string is stitching, not healing."
Ren gave that indifferent judgment, then turned his hand and changed the direction of his thunder output.
"Don't look down on me, damn it!"
With lightning crashing down above him, Doflamingo activated his power and raised a tsunami of string toward the lofty six-winged angel.
"Sea Plain: White Wave!"
The chunk of white land where he stood transformed entirely into a surging giant wave rushing upward into the sky!
Hundreds of thousands of strings—each as hard as steel—were also, against all logic, endowed with terrifying speed and kinetic force.
If they struck Dressrosa's cliff walls, they could smash away an entire section of the island!
"Futile—"
With one hand, Ren redirected the Thunder Prison and had it engulf Sea Plain: White Wave.
At the same time, his other hand reached into the air and seized the Cursed Blade: Thousand Edge.
Lightning and string tide collided like two giant beasts tearing into one another.
In the finer points of impact, arcs of electricity burst forth, then were smothered by the string tide—only for new thunder energy to immediately surge in and destroy it again.
For a moment, it was impossible to tell who held the upper hand.
But that was only an illusion.
Both sides had tacitly chosen large-scale attacks.
On the surface it looked like a contest of force, but in truth, both had already turned over their trump cards!
In the next instant,
within the white tide surging toward the heavens, Doflamingo poured all of his advanced Armament Haki into the giant strands extending behind him.
"Sixteen Holy Bullets: God Thread!"
Sixteen massive white lances of string, wrapped in extremely dense Armament Haki, pierced through Sea Plain: White Wave and shot through the lightning at astonishing speed.
"Take this! See the decisive gap between us—someone like you isn't even in the same league as me!"
Doflamingo's mad laughter echoed through the sky.
Unlike ordinary strings, which would melt the moment they encountered thunder energy, these sixteen enormous white lances possessed terrifying power!
In the original timeline,
the clash between Sixteen Holy Bullets: God Thread and Luffy's Gear Fourth: King Kong Gun alone had stirred up giant waves dozens of nautical miles away from Dressrosa.
And now, that same horrifying attack was rushing toward the source of the lightning in the blink of an eye!
"—Useless!"
Ren spat out those two icy words.
The hand releasing lightning suddenly moved and pressed against the wrist of the hand holding the blade.
Haki surged forth and coated his hands, while mixed thunder energy poured into the blade and spread toward its tip.
At the same time, behind him, a blood-red demonic phantom suddenly appeared and enveloped the entire six-winged angel.
"Blood Demon Protection!"
A materialized Protective Qi Barrier emerged together with that crazily laughing scarlet demonic shadow.
But it was not an attack.
After the Blood Demon phantom appeared, it produced a large amount of solid Qi, which, under Ren's control, formed into strip-like bands—channels of Qi.